Is this normal behavior for an Android device?

Factual Questions
1

This is my Android tablet :

It’s running Android 5, which must have been upgraded automatically from 4.4.

I’m not good with portable devices, phone, tablets etc. My friend recommended this to me in2016, but it’s always been a pain to me. Slow as hell to surf with, regardless of internet connection. Navigating around, opening links, typing forum messages and emails just takes three, four times as long as my desktop, which is on the same network. Surfing is a gigantic pill.

Typing a message on the on-screen keyboard is very difficult for me, but I VERY OFTEN find myself waiting for the screen to catch up with what I typed anyway, despite my slow typing. Working with such a delay, I often type the wrong thing or hit the wrong spot on the screen, going to the wrong site, making the experience even worse.

If I run something like TuneIn to listen to music while I surf, it’s even worse. I’ve tried asking my friend about how HIS works, but he just doesn’t seem to grasp my problem, which leads me to believe that he doesn’t have this problem. Perhaps he does, and doesn’t find this behavior to be an issue, which I find hard to believe. It’s so frustrating. It’s SOOOOO SLOOOOW.

Is this tablet just old and slow? Is it somehow set up badly and acting this way because of that? Are there background tasks bogging things down? Are all portable devices this slow and painful to surf with, and everyone just accepts it and never comments on it?

The only time I’ve had anything like a similar experience is when my desktop had its GPU die, and I needed to use my stepsisters computer to research a replacement. It was loaded up with old lady crapware like Bonzai Buddies, and it was six years old on top of that.

So, is this lack of speed something that is normal and I should accprt as part of the experience, or is my tablet just problematic in some way?

2

That is not normal behavior for what is a perfectly adequate tablet. You should check the running apps and kill anything even slightly suspect and see if that helps. Sometimes, another easy way to catch something gone haywire is in the settings under Battery. If something is using an inordinate amount of juice, that’s a big clue. Same thing under Data Usage.
If you don’t mind a fresh start, you could always do a factory reset, returning it to like it was out of the box.

3

Under Batteey:
screen
Firefox
Android OS
Android system

I don’t THINK I have much or anything running except for the browser and maybe a music app. . I hit the little square box at the bottom of the screen to see that, vright?

4

In the settings, go to Apps.
Is the keyboard input always laggy/slow? Maybe try installing Gboard, the Google keyboard.

5

I’m using SwiftKey now. Previously I had used what ever came with the tablet, which may have been the Google keyboard. Poking around the tablet, there seems to be a lot of Google apps that I don’t use, but it says, “if you Uninstall a built in app, bad things may happen yatta yatta…”

Under settings/apps, here are running services…

Radio. Com
Filemanagerhd
firefox
Plex
RE equalizer
ATCI_service
Com. Huagin. Factoryservice
Bluetooth share
Google playnservices
LenovoID
Google services
Device services
System update
Google
Lastpass
SwiftKey keyboard

6

I used to use Swiftkey and liked it a lot. That said, Gboard is basically the same thing and you’re having keyboard problems. Uninstall.
Do you use Plex? How much memory is it using? Speaking of which, how much free memory do you have left?

7

I uninstalled Swiftkey. Gboard doesn’t seem to have a split, thumb-typing setup, so it’s not gonna work for me longterm, but i’ll use it for now.

I do use Plex. I’ve been in the hospital for awhile, and will be for, probably, another month or two. It gives me something to help pass the time. I’m no good with portable gadgets, but i’m fair to middlin’ with desktops, so I got Plex set up before i went in. So glad I did.

THINK this is what you’re asking for:

RUNNING SERVICES:
System - .88-.91 GB
APPS -552mb
Free - 405 mb

Manage apps/Plex: 132 mb

Thanks for trying to help, btw. Getting this working better would make passing the time more pleasaant.

8

There’s abunch of apps in MANAGE-APPS that I don’t think I need and will probably never use, but they tell me they’re built-in and I should not disable, like:
Hangouts
Text-to-speech enegine
google news
talkback

Google play is awefully busy, with about six related apps, but I better leave that alone.

Not sure if I need the Gmail app either. I USE gmail, but I think the app just constantly moitors my gmail and tells me when I gt an email. Don’t feel like I need most of those notifications you get when you swipe down - the system notifications and app updates, thats it. If I want to know about email delivery, I’ll check it.

Don’t know how bad an idea it is to start disabling these things, so I’m not touching it.

9

Did changing the keyboard seem to help at all?

You’d probably benefit from freeing up some RAM by killing unnecessarily running apps or by pruning them by clearing their cache and/or data. You’re always safe clearing cache, though clearing data can cause you to lose that app’s settings, login/pw, etc., basically making that app as if it was just installed.

Another thing, go to settings Storage. How much free space on the internal and any external SD card?

10

Also, is that FilemanagerHD something we can uninstall? How much memory does that use?

11

about 20mb, and yeah, i think i can dump it. It was reccomended by the same gyuy who recommended the Tablet. Think it was supposed to help me transfer files from computer to internal memory and the memory card.

internal memory 16gb
available mem- 4gb
System mem - 4gb
Apps 4.5 gb

SD card 59.5gb
Available 43 gb

Nope, still bogging down. :frowning:

12

Toying with the idea of a factory reset. It’s a fairly popular tablet. Maybe I’ll find some good forum posts about setup and de-crapifying whatever unnecessary software they may have installed by the manufacturer. That will pass the time here, anyway. Something to think about.

13

hmmm, i’m onlyrunning android 5.0. I read where they updated the OS to 6.0. I never got it. Wonnder if I shuldnt try toforce an update before the reset.

14

Well,I did it, I reset it to factory default. Hope it goes off and upgrades to Android 6.0. It was stuck on 5.0 for over a year.

Not yet sure of the results. The keyboard was really backed up earlier, but seems ok as I type this. It updated a lot of things, maybe that helped. Have to play some, see how it goes. Really hope I don’t need a computer to upgrade to 6.0 though. Would be nice, but some tablets can’t do it automatically.

15

Good move, a nice fresh start. Now just don’t install or change too much at once, so that if the problem starts happening again, you’ll have more of a clue what did it.
I don’t think you’ll need a computer to do the upgrade.

16

When you are ready for a change, get a Chromebook. We had Android tablets in our district for the kids when I first came to work here and then, after a couple of years, we switched to Chromebooks. They run SO MUCH better than the Android and are much easier to service yourself.

17

I haven’t looked into Chromebooks recently. Have they managed a way to make Android apps work seamlessly? Because if not, that’s your main problem right there. That and Microsoft is coming out with a $400 Surface that supposed to be a good value, further complicating the choice.

18

Keyboard’s bogging down periodically for 5-20 seconds. I saved a draft and closed firefox/re-rn it and it was better. Right now, I’ve just installed firefox and LastPass. Maybe Firefox just gets bogged down. I also have Chrome,but I think that’s installed whe you get android.

Or maybe LastPass is a problem. Doesn;t matter, I need it awhile for the new install.

19

Question re: the Gmail app.

I have and use a couple gmail email addresses, but I don’t have any interest in the gmail app - I think. I want to do all my normal gmail activities just by going to gmail and clicking around there. I don’t need a notification every time I get a email. I don’t want to use it to write emails,etc. Unless it carries out some other hidden tasks, I want to disable it. Does it perform some background functions I don’t know about, or is it all notifications and actions I take with it?

Did some googling, seems like I don’t need it. Not quite sure.

You know, I don’t need many notifications at all. Seems like every time I go to a new website, they want permission to push notifications to me. Any way to keep from getting asked that ever again, or auto-declining?

20

Assuming you have the default keyboard now, try Gboard? Or was that default? Try another keyboard if you’re having problems, is what I’m saying. Is it acting up in any way other than the keyboard?

Try disabling the Gmail app if it weirds you out for some reason. Don’t be too afraid when doing stuff like that and troubleshooting, just try to do one thing at a time and remember how to undo it. Worst case, you do another factory reset.

Regarding the notifications, with FF for android, type “about:config” in the address bar, search for “dom.webnotifications.enabled” and set to false.